Commencement
by hestia-jones85
Summary: There is a young boy at the orphanage, and he is not quite right.


He was standing straight in front of the mirror. No limb dared to move; no muscle dared to twitch. His eyes were so focused on the reflection facing him that the tall glass receptor might have shattered, unable to stand the pressure.

The hallway outside his room was silent as most of the children from the orphanage were playing in the local playground. It was absolutely quiet, yet he didn't mind the smothered atmosphere; in fact, it was his favourite time of the day. He, unlike the other parentless children who craved for human company, had found that he could do without it, that he thrived in its absence. He was all he had, and that was a comforting thought.

There was, of course, a time when he had wanted to possess a stable relationship with a person. Dennis Bishop. Billy Stubbs. Amy Benson. Dennis had found him odd because he didn't talk much and lied better than him, so in the end, the boy had sold him to the authority. Amy wouldn't let him borrow her mouth-organ; finally, he had had to take it forcibly. Billy, with whom he'd often had breakfast, had decided to hit him because he wouldn't give away his apple. He hated apples, and the fight could have been avoided if he had just given his share to Billy, but the latter was a glutton, and the apple – _his_.

He had, therefore, quickly grown tired of wasting his efforts on such an endeavour. Besides, he was _so_much worthier than them. Dennis, Billy, Amy, or anyone else he knew could never do the things he could.

They couldn't, for instance, raise their fingers, touch the cold, merciless mirror in their room, and make it melt. But he could – and he _was_doing the exact thing. The fingers of his left hand were pressed upon the screen, creating a small ripple that disturbed the smooth glass so that his own reflection blurred. It lasted only for a few seconds, but that wasn't important. What mattered was the fact that he could do something, which no one else would ever imagine trying.

He smiled – and somewhere in the disturbed outline of flesh and clothes, he could detect the same smile forming. This was special, more special than mouth-organs, the clumsy pranks orchestrated by Dennis, or the human presence provided by Billy in the dining hall.

This was also greatly frustrating; he clearly didn't belong here, among inane chatters and meaningless scuffles and cheap toys and mundane games that could never satisfy him. There was a thirst in him, which the offerings of the orphanage could never fill up. He didn't yet know what it was, but he was often restless and irritable. Insomnia cradled him at times, trapping him in endless nights that he spent resenting every nook and corner of his cold and cheerless room.

Daylight was no better, though. Daylight meant that the keepers of the building were awake, trying to coax him out for tasteless meals and faithless prayers. He never understood the appeal of supplicating to an invisible entity that never answered the pleas and wishes it was bombarded with. If there was one thing he valued, it was results: results that were visible.

After Dennis had confessed to Mrs Cole that it was Tom who had thrown the stone at old Mr Halloway's window pane, he had merely been let off with a warning. When the search for Amy's missing mouth-organ was on, the finger had been pointed at him, yet they hadn't succeeded in locating the stolen object in his room. Billy had wanted _his_apple, and although he had had to suffer a punch in the stomach, it was Billy who got the scolding in the end.

Their actions had been impotent, but _his_had succeeded. His had fetched results. He opened his cupboard and took out the mouth-organ, which he had rescued back from the broom-closet. A shrill 'prrrrrrrt' issued as he ran it across his lips. Pleasure, indescribable pleasure.

It wasn't over yet. It had just started, and more results were coming. After putting the mouth-organ back inside the cupboard, he walked out of his room. He thought back to that whirr of movement when Billy's fist had connected with his stomach, then summoned every amount of that special thing inside him to make him feel that pain again. An involuntary grunt escaped his throat as he succeeded, but he made no effort to lessen the agony.

His footsteps, ever so soft, never made a sound as he walked along the landing, counting the number of doors until the one he meant to break in. However, a small beating had started off in his brain as each step fell on the stringently scrubbed floor, and by the time he had reached his destination, it had grown to a full pounding that reverberated through his head and crashed against his ears.

Only a latch stood between him and his victim. It was such a pathetic method of keeping one's possession safe that he had to chuckle. His fingers, too long for a boy his age, caressed the cold steel before picking up the handle and sliding it open. Then, he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

An open cage lay at the corner. Fear gripped him: what if its owner had taken it outside? But as his eyes swept over the tiny room, he saw the puny animal resting on Billy's bed, curled into itself, no doubt lulled to sleep by the false sense of security afforded by an unlocked latch. He had never felt anything close to affection for it, an utterly useless pet. No, it wasn't going to hurt _him_, whatever he was about to do.

Heaving a sigh of relief, he walked over to the bed and gingerly picked it up. The stupid animal went on sleeping. All the better for him, he thought as he carried it towards the loft. As he had suspected, the place was empty when he entered, if not for the huge amount of cobwebs, dirt and abandoned possessions that tried to cover up the sullen void. Nobody bothered to clean it, which was why it was the safest choice for his mission.

He paused for a moment when he considered the height of the rafters. Then, he looked down at the victim and felt the hum of its body warming his arms.

There was no hesitation in him as he laid it on the floor, took out the piece of string from his pocket, and gently tied it around its neck; there was no second thought as he invoked that strange, beautiful thing again, making the animal levitate towards a huge bar of wood that supported the roof. The sleeping animal seemed to wake only when it was already halfway into the air, floating upwards on its own volition and heading towards death. It was still silent, though, if only a little shocked. No noise came from it even as the string wound itself around the rafter.

It was only when he let go of the support he had provided its body that it began to squeal. For a moment, he was scared that the sound would carry downstairs, but the huge grandfather clock on the ground floor struck at that moment. Four gloriously loud gongs, and it was all over.

He returned to his room, climbed on the bed, and waited.

Ages seemed to snail past him before the children returned, before Billy was shouting in the hallway, before the search began. They checked every room, even his own, and he could see Billy eyeing him in distrust as he rubbed his eyes vigorously, pretending to have woken up from a deep slumber. At last, the search spread out to other parts of the building, until someone finally decided to go up to the loft.

A scream followed, but was soon muffled by the sound of so many feet rushing upstairs. His were two of them. He was running like he never had, pushing others who had dared to be ahead of him. Soon, he was there, and it thrilled him to see Billy cry his heart out as he looked at the sorry figure of his bunny hanging from the rafters.

But nothing showed on _his _face, except that odd gleam in the eyes which were taking in the scene of confusion and horror around him. Nurses were baffled; children were scared. He felt, for the first time in his life, an immeasurable sense of satisfaction.

And it still wasn't over.

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The characters belong to J K Rowling and her Harry Potter books.


End file.
